Husam Zomlot: How could Palestine respond to annexation?
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2020
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s not clear when, or even if, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to deliver on his promise to annex a large chunk of the occupied West Bank. It’s even less clear what the Palestinian strategy will be if it happens. HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to the Palestinian ambassador in London, Husam Zomlot. With the conflict at a turning point, does the Palestinian leadership have the vision, imagination and credibility to mount an effective response?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Saker. |
| 0:04.7 | My guest today is a trusted envoy of the veteran president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. |
| 0:12.1 | Hussam Zumlott represented the Palestinians in Washington during the early days of the Trump administration. |
| 0:18.7 | But his office was then closed down. Currently, he's the |
| 0:23.0 | Palestinian ambassador in London. And right now, he's braced for the fallout from what promises to be |
| 0:28.6 | a turning point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If and when the Israeli Prime Minister |
| 0:34.9 | delivers on his promise to annex roughly 30% of the occupied West Bank. |
| 0:42.5 | Palestinians say annexation would represent a grave violation of international law and kill any hope of |
| 0:50.5 | peace. They're calling on the international community to pressure Mr. Netanyahu to reverse |
| 0:55.7 | course. But what of the Palestinians themselves? Do their leaders have the vision, the imagination, |
| 1:02.4 | the credibility to change the dynamic of the conflict in a more positive direction? Well, |
| 1:08.8 | Husam Zumlott joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. |
| 1:12.6 | You Palestinians were preparing on July 1st to hear the announcement from the Israeli government |
| 1:18.6 | that they were going ahead with the annexation of a major chunk of the West Bank. It hasn't |
| 1:25.6 | happened. Do you have any reason to believe it won't? |
| 1:29.8 | No, I don't have any reason so far to believe it won't happen. The calculus with Netanyahu, |
| 1:34.0 | the calculus in Israel is still the same. The net gain for this government is clear. |
| 1:39.2 | For Netanyahu, it's simply a way of reassuring his re-elections, his control of the system, dodging criminal |
| 1:46.3 | charges, and he's been achieving that. Also, it serves as a key strategic function, which is |
| 1:51.8 | destroying the two-state solution. And it has been public about it since he was elected first |
| 1:56.0 | time in 1996. He's hostile to the very idea of a sovereign, independent, Palestinian state, and it serves a political function, a distraction. |
| 2:05.1 | Everybody is up in arms about him stopping annexation, when in fact the discussion should be on ending occupation. |
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